New Car

Crashing Aftermath

We, me and the MoSup, spent most of of the last week on car wreck aftermath stuff.  As you'll remember, MoSup had a mishap on a wet/oily road last Saturday.  We had just finished making the last payment on a 60 month loan.  The car, a Hyundai Sonata GLS/SE (loaded) was in showroom condition, but with 60, 0000 miles.  MoSup had it dealer serviced,  religioulsy following Hyundai's schedule, and had the finish and leather serviced twice a year. The airbags did not deploy as she slid into the back of a pickup truck (undamaged). She drove the car immediately after, and reported that except for the metal tent outside the windshield, she would not know it was just in an accident.  No fluids were leaking.  On Tuesday our insurance company called to tell us the car was totaled, and they were paying us $8500.  I was stunned.  Well, the voice said, the repair shop repair (they had the car towed to a Buick dealer) exceeded the "threshold" for our five-year old car. It's an automatic judgment. I called the shop, and asked what the repair cost was.  $5,7000, the lady said.  Well, I said, I'm better off buying the car from the insurance company, and having it fixed.  At least we won't have a new deck of car payments.  Expecting a "whatever," from her, I instead could hear alarm bells go off in her head. A string of negative reason not to pursue that course followed. You'll never be able collision insure it again, since it will be computer registered as having been totaled. The service guy did not take the car apart, so that estimate was just  what he could see. Even if it's fixed it will prolly never be the same. For reasons mostly independent of those, we decided to take the money and get a new car while car dealers are in a state of panic.  We went to the shop in order to clean her stuff out, and retrieve the plates.  MoSup told the girl at the desk, the same person I had spoken to, how surprised  we were that it was totaled.  She openrd the folder and said, "Well, it had $6900 worth of damage." The repair estimate had increased $1200 overnight?  Later, she volunteered that "we'll just strip it down and sell it for parts. They? Bingo.  Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the person the insurance company is depending on to provide an accurate repair estimate, has a vested interest in seeing the car totaled.  I'm telling you all this  because I want to report my suspicions to the insurance company, so was writing it anyway, and thought some of you may find it instructive. Oh, we finally replaced it yesterday with a 2009 version of the car she had (she loved it), except this one has something she's wanted for years.  Heated seats.  Everybody's happy again.  Also, she was touched that so many of you expressed concern for her.  So thank you.